One of my favorite and most useful classes this term is Research Writing WR123. Not only will this class serve me well for the rest of my college career, but my instructor is a fellow Non Traditional Student (well, ex-non trad, I guess…) We have been discussing my topic for my term long research paper about the Non Traditional Student Phenomenon. Instructor April produced a Non Trad story of her own that I felt compelled to share with the Non Trad Blog world. Take a few minutes and read the story about one of our fellow Non Traditional Students who now is both a teacher and an example to us all. Perhaps it should begin…”Hi, I’m April and I’m a recovering Non Trad”
Note: WOU is Western Oregon University, Monmouth, Oregon
“A Back-to-School Story”
After having pushed me for years to go back to college, my Taekwondo instructor Master Tesdal
was thrilled when I told him that I had enrolled at Western Oregon University.
I was horrified.
My marriage of twenty years had collapsed in on itself like a sand castle melting in the rain, and
I had no marketable skills, no job, no income. I had been barely more than a housewife since
high school. My sister laid my choices in front of me: get a job at McDonald’s, or go back to
school. “Once you start trying to support yourself with a minimum wage job, you’ll never have
time to even think about building a better life,” she said. And I knew she was right. She showed
me how to fill out a FAFSA online, and I started looking for colleges that weren’t too far from
my children, who had no desire to leave their school district.
I’d tried college once, straight out of high school. I hated it. I suffered serious culture shock
going from the small town, under-the-microscope life I was raised in to life in the big city.
Portland State University seemed like an alien planet. One day, I stood beside a man in a
wheelchair for several minutes waiting for an elevator. People began to gather behind us.
Abruptly, the doors opened, and we found ourselves shoved out of the way as hordes pushed past
us and the doors closed in our faces. I looked down at the man beside me thinking, “I can take
the stairs, but what’s he supposed to do?” I couldn’t believe how self-focused people were.
Another problem I had was that in my efforts to find places to study alone, I drew lurking
perverts. I remember one man shouting after me in a broken hearted voice as I fled for the bus
stop, “I’m sorry!” Many people thrive in the big city– I did not. I was glad to drop out after only
two years. For the following eighteen years, I played housewife, raised two kids, sewed, drew,
painted, wrote books, started Taekwondo; I filled my life with things that would keep me from
thinking about the fact that I was hiding from the world.
Now I was rearranging my life. There were no schools within driving distance for a day trip, so I
had to surrender that idea. I went with my second criteria: that the campus be small and friendly.
I chose WOU. From the first time I walked onto the campus, I knew it felt right. People smiled at
me, said hello, and held doors for each other. The next step was finding somewhere to live. A
loan from my mother made it possible for me to rent my first apartment until financial aid kicked
in. I left my children, aged 18 and 14 at the time, my dog, my home, and nearly all my
belongings, and I moved to Rickreall. As I prepared to become a college student again, I kept up
with Taekwondo. It was my anchor.
Grandmaster Kim, the head of our Taekwondo schools, has a favorite ritual in which he reminds
everyone at promotion tests and tournaments of the value of a good education. Any student
enrolled in school from kindergarten through college with a 3.0 grade point average or higher
receives a certificate of achievement. To underscore how important it is to achieve the highest
possible grades, Grandmaster Kim orders, “All students stand up,” and everyone who is an
enrolled student, no matter what age, must stand up and face him. When he called out the order,
my instructor Master Tesdal knew that I was registered at WOU and practically shoved me to my
feet. Reluctantly I stood up, face flaming, to join the grade school kids around me. “Repeat after
me,” Master Kim intoned, “I will do my best to get straight A’s.” I rolled my eyes, horrified, and
repeated the words in a mumble. The kids beside me seemed just as embarrassed, and we all sat
down with relief.
I was 38. Far, far too old (I thought) to hope for more than passing grades at college. My brain
had lost too many cells over the years, and it had just been too many decades since I had done
any formal study. I didn’t believe in the oath I gave Grandmaster Kim, but I decided to at least
try.
The first day of class, I drove onto campus shaking with nerves. A song came on the radio: “In a
little while” by Uncle Kraker. I can’t explain it, but it felt like a message. Some of the lyrics go,
“Sometimes I feel like something is gone here/ Something is wrong here/ I don’t belong here,”
but then the tone turns, and the song becomes very upbeat. I tried to relax. But to add to my
discomfort, I noticed right away that most of the students in my classes looked no older than
eighteen. In fact, I found out later that WOU has one of the youngest student bodies in the state:
more than 75% of it’s students are under the age of 25. I was old enough to be the mother of most
of my classmates.
I ignored these doubts and pushed myself to focus on my classes. Noticing that most of the other
students often reacted to a teacher’s question with painful, wide-eyed silence, I made a conscious
decision to take advantage of my advanced age and began raising my hand more often. Often, the
younger students would begin to relax when they saw me interacting with the teacher without too
much humiliation, and they began participating as well. The professors were often my age
(sometimes younger), and I found it easy to talk to them.
When I checked grades at the end of the first term, my hands were shaking, and I felt nauseous.
To my shock, I had straight A’s. It pays to have a passion for your classes, apparently. I realized
then that I could never have appreciated college when I was younger: I just wasn’t ready
emotionally at that time. But I was ready now. I loved my classes, loved being there, loved
hauling gear in a backpack and being part of the ebb and flow of university life. I loved being a
student and actually enjoyed studying. I started seeing A’s as goals to be fought for.
Going back to school, living on my own for the first time… these are not all memories I cherish,
and it was not the best of times– I was alone and missed my family. But I don’t regret my choice.
For the first time in my life, I am following the path I was meant to. I have a career. Years ago
when my marriage ended, no one wanted to hire me; I had no useful skills. It feels unbelievably
good to be wanted, to do an interview and be asked immediately to sign on. And I’m so grateful
for the teachers who pushed me to join the world and discover my potential.
As I drove off WOU’s campus for the last time, a college graduate, that same song came on the
radio that had played as I drove onto campus that first day: “Some things are lost, some left
behind/ Some things are better left for someone else to find…” When one door closes… the future
comes knocking.
The story highlights the one thing that I find to be true of almost every mature student. They almost always think that they can’t get good grades, and they almost always do get good grades.